been fo Great and Potent, that being unaccounta ble to any Mortal he needed not have feared Temporal Punishment, altho' his Sin had been never fo manifeft; yet even in fuch Cafes and Inftances as thefe we are informed by History that Confcience has exerted its terrifying Power, and that neither the closest and most concealed Sinners, nor yet the most potent and unaccountable ones(witness the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Nero, Caligula,) have been able to efcape the inward Threats and Lashes of their Minds for having offended; now what ailed fuch Perfons to reflect on their past flagitious Practices with horror and affrightment of Soul, were there not fomething within them which fuggested an after-Account and Reckoning? and were not the Upbraidings of their Confciences a kind of Preludium or Emblematical Representation of the Judgment to come?

For to fay that these guilty Fears and Accufations of a bad Confcience, or comfortable Excufings and Acquitments of a good one, both evidently relating to Expectations in another Life, owe their rife to custom of Belief and the prepoffeffions of Education, and have not their foundations in the Natural and Primitive Endowments of our Souls, is a precarious Affertion, without the leaft fhadow of Reason to back it; for if the Terrors of Confcience and Dreads of a future Reckoning, to be met with more or less in all Mankind upon the commiffion of any great, known, and voluntary Wickednefs, were the Product of Inftitution or InftruEtion only about fuch an after-State of Accounts, how then comes it to pass that the most rude and uninftructed Nations, fuch as the Barbarous Indians, Brachmans, and Savage Americans are pof

felfed

feffed with the pre-notions of another World, and with the rebukes of their own Confciences upon doing Evil?

All Men no doubt are defirous to be delivered from these Terrors of Mind, by reafon of their gi ving them much difquiet, and confequently they are willing, without question, to hearken to any propofed Remedy against them; how then comes it to pafs either that Men have been fo eafily receivable of these vain Terrors, feeing we naturally repel things which give us difturbance; or having received them from Education about a future Reckoning, how is it that contrary Education and Inftruction fhould not drive out thefe Fears and felfCondemnations from our Minds, and rid us of all Jealoufies of an after-Account for our Offences? One Education one would think might do as much as another, viz. unteach what another had taught, Eefpecially fince 'tis Wicked Mens Defire and Inte relt to be untaught it; and fince alfo there have been ever fome People in the World, fuch as Eprcurus and his Followers, who have profeffedly endeavoured to deliver Men from Affrightments and Accufations of Confcience, but who could ne ver yet accomplish fuch their Wicked Ends and Defigns.

Now is it not a ftrange thing that they which would imprint (according to our Scepticks) fuch vain and groundless Fears in the Minds of Men, as of future Retributions fuitable to our good or bad Actions in this Lite, fhould have fucceeded fo Happily and Univerfally therein, notwithstanding all the Natural Averfions in us to fuch Dreads of Mind, and to Expectations of future Judgment and Punishment if we have done Evil, and that

they

they who would deliver us from fuch tormenting Anticipations of Opinion could never effect this their Purpose, altho' they had the Defires of the Wicked on their fide, viz. that there might be no after-Account, and had the Affiftance alfo of Natu ral Prophaneness to favour them in the Attempt? A Propenfity to which I fear there is in a very great part of Mankind; and yet nevertheless the number is fo fmall of those who have refcued themselves from the difquieting Prefages of Confcience, as thews these Prefages to be Natural,and the attempt to get rid of them vain and fruitlefs; indeed fo vain, that perhaps there never was one Perfon that became abfolutely free from those Anticipations of Mind concerning a future State; no not even Lucretius or Epicurus himself.

Nay the Univerfality of this Belief of a Life to come, and of the confequent fearful Reflection on our past evil Actions, tho' never fo concealed and unaccountable here, can certainly be ascribed or owing to nothing elfe than the general Dictate of Nature and Anticipation of a future Reckoning, for what is Univerfal in all the Individuals of any Species, 'tis rational to conclude is Natural to them, not foreignly fuperinduced; and what is Natural to all Men, is from God, the Author of their Nature; and what is from him must needs be no vain thing; he being neither capable of deceiving or of being deceived.

Now if the Soul of Man be not immortal and accountable in another Life for its Actions performed in this, how hath fuch a Fancy entered our Minds,and been able to become fo deeply rooted in them, that there is no Perfwafion more readily entertained, more firmly believed, more diffi

cultly

cultly relinquifhed, more univerfally aflented unto than this? Not only the Greeks and Romans, the more refined and polifhed Nations have been poffeffed with this Opinion, but the Barbarians and lefs civilized People have equally had this Perfwafion of the perpetual Duration of their Souls. Now, whence had Men this fo general and univerfal, fo firm and lafting, ftedfaft and unalterable Belief, but either had the Notion created with and impreffed upon their Spirits in the primitive Original of them, and fo had it immediately from God; or elfe had the Opinion derived from the first Parent of Mankind, who conveyed it down to his Defcendants, and they to their Poiterity, and fo on by an uninterrupted Tradition : And altho' this Tradition has been altered in divers manners through lapfe of Time, yet the principal part thereof, the Belief it felf or the Soul's Immortality, hath fuch a Foundation in Truth and in Nature, in univerfal Confent, and uninterrupted Tradition, in the Suitablenefs and Correfpondence it bears to our rational Faculties, and to their plainly fpiritual and immaterial Operations, that it has been impoffible for many Ages of Time, which ordinarily decays every thing elfe, to prevail against it, or at leaft wholly to deface it out of Mens Minds, which proves the Opinion natural, and if fo, from the God of Nature, and if from him, true, and having a Foundation in Reality, his Goodness, Juftice, and Truth obliging him to impress no Notion on our Souls, which has not its Ground-work in the real Exiftence of things.

And thus have I endeavoured the fhewing what Evidence of another Life, the bare Light of Na

C

tute

ture or Reafon, unaffifted with Divine Revelation, affordeth.

But if the Argument's hitherto ufed, are not fully and thoroughly convincing of the great Point in difpute, viz. of the Being of a future State, I have a farther and moft undeniable Evidence thereof, with refpect to us Chriftians, and that is the Affurance we have of it from Divinely inspired Scripture.

I call this Evidence of another Life arifing from Divine Revelation, an Affurance of fuch an AfterCondition, becaufe if evidently contained in the Word of God, it cannot but be true, the Revealer thereof being fo, and it being impoffible for him to be otherwife.

Now, that the Doctrine of a future Being is evidently and peremptorily afferted in Holy Writ, I proceed under my fecond general Head to fhew:

And firft from Proofs of it taken out of the Old Teftament; for as to what is affirmed by fome, that all the Bleffings which God promifeth under the Jewish Difpenfation, are of Temporal good things only, which have no farther Refpect than to the Duration of this prefent Life, and that therefore there can be no certain Proof of the Human Soul's Immortality drawn from the Law of Mofes; were it fo as thefe Men affirm, that Jewish Covenant would have been altogether in vain, and to no purpofe; infufficient to have incited thofe to Obedience, to whom it was propofed as an Incitement: For I dare confidently affert, that of all thofe Perfons who are recorded with Praife under the Mofaick Inftitution, for religiouf ly obferving it, not one did attain, I do not fay